Starring: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Paul Dano
It's Thanksgiving and Keener Dover (Jackman) is celebrating with friends when his daughter, Anna (Erin Gerasimovich) and her friend Joy (Kyla Drew Simmons) play outside, near a trailer. A short time later and the girls can't be found and are reported missing. Keener suspects Alex Jones (Dano), a local adult with severe learning difficulties and becomes increasingly driven to prove Alex guilty.
Playing heavily towards arousing fears and paranoia, Prisoners is a film that's perhaps too tough for some viewers but plays with its plot in an interesting way. However, Prisoners seems to have probably worked best as a taut ninety-minute whodunnit as opposed to the lumbering and convoluted result of having the film be an hour too long. The strength of the performances is somewhat mixed, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Paul Dano doing perhaps the best work even if Dano's character of the mentally feeble Alex is under-explored for all the screen-time he's given. Hugh Jackman conversely has an interesting role as a man whose sense of devotion pushes him to some dark ends, but often gives too intense a performance, screaming his way through a good share of his dialogue. Technically speaking, the film is well made with a pervasive sense of tension and some strong visuals (especially an extended pan across a river as police search for traces of abduction victims) but ultimately, Prisoners is a good film, even if it does over-complicate itself.
Prisoners will open in the UK on the 27th of September and is already playing in the US.
Next time, Halle Berry's job taking calls for the emergency services has her reliving a past trauma when Abigail Breslin calls for help in The Call.
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